We imaged the spreading process of platelets without and with thrombin stimulation prior to contact with the surface.

Granula constituents propagate subsequent activation, adhesion, and spreading of platelets and ultimately the formation of a blood clot.Activated platelets undergo shape changes, adhere, and spread at the site of injury to form a blood clot.We investigated the morphology and morphological dynamics of human platelets after complete spreading using fast scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM).1b, Supplementary Movie S1b), although the spreading area did not further increase (Supplementary Fig. The morphology of unstimulated spread platelets also became dynamic after additional stimulation with thrombin (Fig.1c, Supplementary Movie S2), indicating that the thrombin-induced dynamics were independent of the spreading process.